The Death of Democracy

The Death of Democracy Article 2002 – Article for Media Workers Against War
By Fiona Philips
April 21….We have created a monster and its turning on us, but we must not underestimate the power of the will of vast numbers of people to win over this beast, writes Fiona Philips for Media Workers Against War.
With the events of September 11 come the final death throes of democracy. Have we been too blind or duped to realize it? Have your concerns about the events of September 11 been satisfactorily answered for you by the mass media? Reading the ‘alternative’ media, the picture becomes much clearer – and it isn’t the one fed to us by the monotones of television news. It is more a realisation that we are now saying goodbye to democracy and freedom, and that the global conspiracy folk might not be that far off the mark, if at all.
The ‘war on terror’ is actually terrorism itself, but no-one wants to admit it. It’s like having a dinosaur in the lounge and everyone is pretending its not there. The US is terrorizing hundreds of thousands of people in a ‘war without end’, which has only just begun.

America is menacing Iraq, Columbia and Somalis, promising military action is ‘40-50 countries’. Iraq has already witnessed the death of 500,000 innocent civilians in Afghanistan – the true figure may never be known – chasing a man they’ve never caught, for a crime, it is uncertain he ever committed.
Spookily too, until last October, the Bush family and the Bin Laden family were in business together, along with John Major and various other ex-heads of state, in the armaments investment company ‘The Carlyle Group’. For 14 years now, with almost no publicity, this $14bn dollar arms company has become the thread which indirectly links the American military policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East to the personal financial fortunes of its celebrity employees, not least the current US presidents father. As Carlyle investors watched the World Trade towers go down, the group’s prospects went up. Who is really benefiting from the $379bn defence budget, paid for in blood and fear by the people’s of the world?

The hypocrisy of the US government is becoming fully visible now. Keel University’s Professor of Politics reminds us that the US has been running its own terrorist training camp for 55 years. Formerly known as the School of Americas and renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (Whisc), it has trained many of the most notorious torturers, mass murderers, dictators and state terrorists of Latin America. The school, based in Georgia, US, teaches people to carry out murder, torture and false imprisonment. Its ‘illustrious’ graduates include 10 heads of state, 15 ministers of national departments, and three ministers of defence, trained to do America’s dirty work.
Have we all been asleep whilst this has happened; whilst democracy has curled up and died? Like Frankenstein, we have created a monster, and its turning on us. The monster is the political, economic, military complexes run by the very few for the benefit of the very few.
Dr Koragina, a senior research fellow at the Russian Institute of Macroeconomic Research, who predicted in July 2001 that an unusual catastrophe would strike America in late August, was interviewed again and asserted the ‘powerful group behind the attacks will make new strikes’. Asked who was really behind this plan, she replied that it is not the 19 terrorists identified by the FBI but, rather, a larger group seeking to reshape the world. She said this group of extremely powerful private persons hold total assets of around %300 trillion and intend to legitimise their power under a new global government. This government, it seems, is called the New World Order and is due to be set in place by 2003. Not surprisingly, many world leaders, such as Bill Clinton, were Rhodes scholars at Oxford University, which teaches the New World Order ideology.
The terrorist attacks provide a remarkable opportunity to advance the New World Order. Dangerous signs for the people of the west are that governments have used this ‘war without end’ to introduce many new laws that restrict people’s civil liberties in countries including France, the UK, America, Australia, Canada and within the EU. The war on terror conveniently creates the excuse of an ‘external’ enemy with no sell-by date. This ever-changing invisible enemy can be manipulated in the mind of the masses to allow totalitarian laws and military action without question. Ignacio Ramonet wrote in a recent article for Le Monde Diplomatique: ‘Defenders of civil rights have good reason for alarm. Everything suggests a police state future’.
Most people harbour quiet suspicions about the events on September 11….could the American government actually have carried out the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon? Consider the following: the BBC’s George Arney reported that former Pakistan Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik was alerted by American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would be launched by mid-October. It seems that America knew they were going in. Does this mean that they knew what was coming on September 11th? Every detail of the war in Afghanistan was carefully prepared years before. It is unlikely that the US government left to chance the question of providing a suitable pretext for military action. Perhaps it was allowed to happen or even seeded by the CIA. Unbelievable? Not possible? Unfortunately for all of us the answer is ‘no’.
On the financial markets – short-selling had been taking place immediately prior to September 11th. This indicates that there was definite foreknowledge of the tragedy in America. According to investigator Michael Ruppert, these transactions were handles primarily by Deutsche Bank, a firm chaired until 1998 by AB Krongard, who is today executive director of the CIA. Thus there is a direct link between the head of the CIA – the secret apparatus of the American State – and foreknowledge of September 11th.
History too, shows us why it is entirely possible for the ruling elite to have planned September 11. In the 1960’s, the US administration at one time considered launching terrorist attacks on American soil. Code-named Operation Northwoods, the plans included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, blowing up a US ship and, most ominously, hijacking planes and orchestrating violent terrorism in US cities. The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public into supporting a war to oust Cuba’s then-communist leader, Fidel Castro. If the US government had plans in the 1960’s for attacks against Americans in order to pursue their agenda, it is entirely possible that they would do it again.

The US targeted Afghanistan without presenting any evidence that either Osama bin Laden or the Taliban regime were responsible for the World Trade Centre atrocity. So what might be the real reason for the attack on Afghanistan? Could it really be about the great game of oil? The US wants to put an oil pipeline across Afghanistan to tap the oil in the Caspian Sea. A journalist, John Pilger, points out: ‘The war on terrorism is a cover for achieving American strategic aims that lie behind the flag-waving facade of great power’. President Bush’s family members are all oilmen. His rhetoric about fighting for justice and democracy is masking a struggle for control of an estimated $5 trillion of oil and gas resources. The so-called ‘war on terrorism’ gives the Us administration the perfect excuse to obliterate the Taliban, install a pro-western government in Kabul and get in place its oil pipelines.

Have we been lulled to sleep by our journalists, who with few notable exceptions, seem incapable of presenting any fundamental challenge to the powers that be? In the modern age the worldwide media is controlled and owned by a few individuals, such as Rupert Murdoch, who are themselves integral to the capitalist system. The CIA, meanwhile, infiltrates the American press and elsewhere the huge media companies are too set on their own profitable goals at the highest levels to dare to , or with to, speak the truth. Michael Ruppert, an ex-LA police officer, claims to have tracked a huge system of drug money laundering in America to General Electric, who just happens to own NBC – the American TV and media giant. If this is true, the media corporations themselves are in too deep to challenge the status quo.

But there are some voices of dissent. On April 20 around 80,000 people – according to the conservative estimates of the BBS – marched in Washington to protest at the corrupt ideas of capitalism and demand ‘an end to war at home and abroad’, along with a review of US foreign policy. Only a minority of opponents to US foreign policy make it onto the streets, so these numbers – coupled with the millions who have joined the demonstrations across Europe – represent enormously significant numbers of critics worldwide. The alarm bells are ringing.
President Bush’s rhetoric about protecting ‘peace and democracy’ merely oil the wheels of the propaganda machine. Such words mask the stark Orwellian truth – Bush’s peace is actually war, and democracy no longer exists. Governments wage wars, murder millions, and people have no say.
It seems September 11th provided an all-too-convenient excuse for the trillionaire club who hold the wealth and power of the world in their hands, to justify a perpetual war for global supremacy, all underpinned by the massive centralisation of power known at the One World Government.
If this is so, we are all in big trouble. Americans have been stunned into silence. And yet they are talking to each other from the keyboards of their computers and so are the people of the world.
Let us not underestimate the power of the will of vast numbers of people to win over this beast that we have created. We are now entering an age where democratic direct action by the people my be the only true source of democracy and opposition to the elite ruling powers that more and more seek domination of our world.